Women In Wellness: Deborah Vinall On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Wanda Malhotra
Don’t take it personally. As a rookie therapist I struggled with personalizing clients prematurely leaving therapy as a rejection of me or indication of my adequacy as a therapist. I now recognize the myriad factors, such as client emotional readiness, finances, and family pressures that influence decisions about continuing therapy.
Today, more than ever, wellness is at the forefront of societal discussions. From mental health to physical well-being, women are making significant strides in bringing about change, introducing innovative solutions, and setting new standards. Despite facing unique challenges, they break barriers, inspire communities, and are reshaping the very definition of health and wellness. In this series called women in wellness we are talking to women doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, fitness trainers, researchers, health experts, coaches, and other wellness professionals to share their stories and insights. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Deborah Vinall, PsyD, LMFT.
Deborah Vinall is a Doctor of Psychology, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and a certified EMDR and Brainspotting practitioner. She specializes in helping individuals heal from traumatic life experiences and painful relationship dynamics.
Dr. Vinall received the Sandra Wilson Memorial Grant for her research into the effects on and best treatment approaches with survivors of mass shootings, and is the author of 2 multi-award-winning books: Gaslighting: A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide to Heal from Emotional Abuse and Build Healthy Relationships and Trauma Recovery Workbook for Teens.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
My backstory is unusual for a psychologist: I grew up poor, living in a trailer house, wearing hand-me-down clothes, and eating donated food. I experienced a lot of trauma, became homeless as a teen, and generally felt alone and worthless. I found purpose in lifting up other black sheep, driven to help others change such negative internalized beliefs about themselves and to overcome the traumas that hold us back. This led me from volunteer work with impoverished teens and into the study of human development, psychology, and therapy. I began my professional career working in group homes and doing intensive in-home work with foster youth, and eventually opened my own practice.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
On December 2, 2015, two terrorists committed a mass shooting at a holiday office party in San Bernardino, not far from where I live and work. By evening that day I received my first contact for crisis counseling for the teenage child of one of the slaughtered employees. Over the next few years, I received many calls to treat survivors of this massacre, including a direct contract with the county. Through this experience I was repeatedly exposed to the horrible events of that day from many different angles. During that timeframe, the mass shooting in Las Vegas created thousands more gun violence survivors, and I began to treat survivors of that event, and later from other mass shootings such as the ones in Thousand Oaks, CA, Saugus, CA, and even Ulvade, TX. I unexpectedly found myself with a sub-specialty within the field of trauma recovery therapy. I later conducted research on a national scale exploring the universality of trauma responses I observed in my own clients with those of survivors of mass shootings across the nation, as well as best practices for treatment, and was awarded a grant for this work from the EMDR Research Foundation.
Having grown up in Canada, a nation that does not revere guns as here and, as with all other developed nations, has a much lower gun violence rate, it was never a specialty I anticipated. I saw first-hand how devastating the effects of gun violence are. We tend to reference mass shootings by the body count and move on, but my clinical experience highlighted just how profound in depth and reach the impacts of such assaults are. For each murder victim, there may be a dozen close family and friends experiencing vicarious trauma, and many dozens of traumatized survivors. Their families are in turn impacted by the terror before receiving news of their loved one’s survival and by the trauma-induced changes in them and those impacts on their relationships. Law enforcement officers and medical response teams often experience trauma reactions to the horrors they encounter on scene and even in the hospital. Communities grapple with vicarious existential trauma as the feeling of safety is blown away. The ripple effects of unmitigated gun violence are immense.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Good psychotherapy schools will require students to undergo their own therapy prior to graduation. I did so but held back from deeply processing certain traumas because old religious beliefs I grew up with got in my way of letting go of self-blame and receiving healing. I falsely assumed I had healed as far as one could, and my lingering PTSD symptoms were just the way it goes. Later, in my own practice, as I facilitated EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy with my own clients with similar stories, I watched as they healed beyond even what I had experienced. This led me back to do more of my own personal growth work. Had I done this difficult but transformational work myself at the outset of my own career, I believe I would have had a more expansive vision for my clients and been able to more confidently and capably lead them toward emotional freedom. The take-away here is always work on yourself first, because your work flows from who you are and the strength of your inner resources, whether in the healing profession, the arts, or in business leadership.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
We are born with unbounded potential, wide-eyed curiosity and lack of inhibition. The various assaults, injuries, and traumas of life gradually chip away at these incredible inner resources. In my work, I help brave individuals examine and release the things that have weighed them down and held them back. One by one, as each person reprocesses their traumas and lays down their burdens, they become empowered to change their corner of the world. It is such a privilege and honor to facilitate healing in this way because the impact is exponential.
I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to publish two books so far for specific audiences — those who have experienced gaslighting and emotional abuse, and traumatized teenagers — because this has expanded my reach far beyond the numbers of patients I could see in my office in a lifetime and brought hope and healing to thousands who may have never accessed a therapist. I’m looking forward to continuing in both writing and direct clinical services.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing?
1 . Sleep. Getting enough sleep every night to awake feeling refreshed is foundational to mental health. In contemporary American society we too often wear lack of sleep as a badge of pride and proof of how hard we work, but it’s no different than bragging about anorexia. Sleep is nutrition for your brain. Don’t skimp on it.
Many people claim they need less sleep than the average person. This is unlikely. The human adult body needs between 7–9 hours of sleep every night. If you go to bed at the same time and wake up feeling refreshed without an alarm, you can calculate how much sleep your brain demands.
There are many small changes you can make to improve sleep. Avoid stimulants such as coffee in the late afternoon and evening, don’t snack in the hour before bed, be consistent with your schedule, and follow a calming evening routine. Reserve the bed for sleep so that it has a strong sleep association — don’t lounge in it on social media, watching T.V., or working.
2 . Move. What’s good for the body is good for the brain. The nerves throughout your body are an extension of your brain, and to keep your brain healthy you need to move the muscles those nerves are in. Physical activity stimulates release of all the feel-good hormones in your brain, from dopamine, which stimulates focus and productivity, to serotonin and norepinephrine, which boost mood and reduce anxiety. Don’t fall in the trap of exercising out of self-loathing and trying to punish your body into a shape you like, but out of self-love and an awareness that you are worthy of happiness and feeling good.
3 . Eat. The brain requires nourishment to operate at its best. Be sure to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fresh produce for essential vitamins and minerals, protein to aid in focus, and complex carbohydrates to build serotonin. Probiotic foods such as yogurt, kefir, and kombucha promote gut-health, which is critical in production of the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin. If you follow a vegan diet, be sure to get labs checked periodically to ensure you are getting all the B vitamins you need to maintain mental wellness.
4 . Connect. Whether you identify as an introvert or an extrovert, we are all fundamentally social beings. As mammals, we are born into relationship and flourish in community. Nurture your important connections with supportive and uplifting friends and family. If you are isolated, explore community options such as classes or volunteer opportunities to get more involved with others. We truly are better together.
5 . Meditate. Practicing mindfulness — bringing your awareness to the present moment — frees you from remaining stuck in the past or held hostage to fear of the future. It creates an expansive space for gratitude to arise for the little things that bring beauty into even the most difficult of days. It supports productive problem solving and task accomplishment. Mindful awareness reminds you that you have resources to move through the challenges you face.
(Bonus) 6: Process. The healthiest lifestyle won’t be enough if you have a trauma history that keeps you stuck in patterns of anger, fear, self-loathing, or inescapable flashbacks, nightmares, or insomnia. Be courageous and humble to seek out professional help to explore your inner wounds so that they can take their place as history, no longer intruding in your daily life.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Universal healthcare would be transformative in allowing everyone to access the therapeutic support they need. I believe it is a fundamental human right, and I hope to see the day when that dream is realized in this country.
Beyond and encompassing that, a movement toward greater interpersonal community support would bring foundational wellness to so many. We need a fundamental shift from individualistic mentality that focuses on achievement and hierarchical climb to one of mutual support, teamwork, collaboration, and equality. In addition to essential self-care, we must implement community care, because wellness does not flourish in isolation. This vision is of a societal shift, but the good news is it can start on an individual level, as each person turns to those around them to both give and receive support.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Stand in your confidence; don’t be bullied. During my first internship I had a difficult situation in which supervisors were altering my clinical notes and forging my signature to hide gender dysphoria expressed by the child client. When I spoke out about the forged alterations, I was met with punitive action. The work environment became hostile and stressful, and I left rather than pushing back further out of fear that they would sabotage my ability to become licensed. In retrospect, I know I was right to support my client and call out the unethical record-alteration, and if I had it to do over again, I would not so easily have backed down.
- The business of running a practice. Graduate schools for psychology fail to teach this aspect, leaving therapists fumbling in the dark to figure it out.
- Just because someone needs help doesn’t mean you have to be the one to provide it. Be choosy and follow your gut regarding who feels right and who feels unsafe. Over my years in practice I have had some dangerous encounters with clients brandishing weapons. In the early days of private practice, I sometimes took on clients who were not a great fit for my specialty out of felt need to grow my practice. Today, I only work with clients who feel like a good fit.
- Don’t take it personally. As a rookie therapist I struggled with personalizing clients prematurely leaving therapy as a rejection of me or indication of my adequacy as a therapist. I now recognize the myriad factors, such as client emotional readiness, finances, and family pressures that influence decisions about continuing therapy.
- Telehealth works. Prior to the pandemic, when someone from out of the area contacted me for therapy, I was highly reticent to conduct therapy via teleconference. The pandemic taught me from necessity that telehealth services can be just as effective as in-person therapy, and confer advantages, as well.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is an obvious answer due to my profession, but outside of work, environmental or climate change is very important to me. Extensive studies have shown the connections between rising temperatures and increased conflict, which leads to trauma everywhere on the scale from increased rates of domestic violence and inner-city violence, all the way to greater incidence of regional escalations and war. No one can argue that increasingly severe weather patterns cause human suffering and trauma, such as drought leading to famine, or hurricanes, ice storms, floods, and tornadoes leading to direct community destruction and loss of life. Where resources grow scarce due to destructive weather patterns, competition for vital resources also leads to war, which ushers in horrific levels of sustained, collective trauma with ripple effects for generations. We must do all that we can to care for our natural environment and stabilize the climate to minimize propagation of global, systemic trauma.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
Connect with me at www.drdeborahvinall.com and sign up for updates or check out my new blog. Follow me on Instagram or on TikTok at @traumatherapydoc.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
